State Fair of Virginia gets its own craft beer by Midnight Brewery

CAROLINE COUNTY, Va. — Here’s one positive outcome (there are many) of Virginia being flush with craft breweries – now our big events all get a custom concoction.

The State Fair of Virginia, one of the commonwealth’s most popular events, just announced a partnership with Midnight Brewery in Rockville.

Together they have schemed up “Virginia Midway,” an unfiltered American wheat beer blended with clover honey from Henrico and finished with Liberty hops.

Now when we say Virginia is flush with breweries, more specifically, we mean 84. That number has almost doubled in just 2.5 years, up from 44.

Beer the ingredients of all these delicious beers were imbibing these days, it’s a collective effort.

There are about 37 Virginia hop farmers that comprised the Old Dominion Hops Co-op. There are a total of 25 acres currently grown. Ninety percent of the hops grown in Virginia are the Cascade variety, 5 percent are Chinook and 5 percent are other varieties.

There is a growing interest in raising malt-type barley for use in the craft and specialty brewing industries. Virginia Tech’s breeding program has been evaluating winter malting-type barley lines, such as Plaisant and Thoroughbred, for use as parents in their breeding program to create barley for use in craft beers.

Virginia farmers harvested 14.8 million bushels of wheat in 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2012 Census of Agriculture. A small portion of that is being used by local brewers.